Speshal Nick [XboxEra]: Jason Ronald not Leading Next-Gen Xbox design (Replaced by Surface team).

Damn, he's been working with Xbox for almost 18 years now. Nasty, but if you don't deliver you basically have to go.

He does seem to have a different take on the term "successful" than most people though:

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Interesting, further cements the handheld rumors. I wonder if the Series team were replaced entirely or just absorbed. Or perhaps Jason Ronald will be developing the "other" next Xbox console, which would make sense after delivering on creating the world's most powerful console :messenger_sunglasses:
 
Astray said:
Was he responsible for the entire concept and technical specs, or was he handed a spec sheet and told to make the hardware around it (enclosure cooling etc)?
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I don't know about that. But didn't he come out and say same experience at lower resolution? Didn't deliver on that
 
FrankWza said:
I don't know about that. But didn't he come out and say same experience at lower resolution? Didn't deliver on that
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Seems like he did lead design for both systems.

If so, he did not only fuck up on specs, he also kinda messed up not making them cost-savy enough, the X is very overbuilt and has a split board layout (which is expensive).
 
Wasn't some of the Surface design team brought in during the XBoneS design phase, back when Panos Panay was still at MS?

There is a big difference between hardware engineers and industrial designers, wonder if this Nicholas lad has got his wires crossed a bit...
 
i'm sincerely conflicted on this, on one hand the S was quite a strange move, on the other the X is still a beautiful designed console (tech hw wise). Anyway they could really move in the hybrid territory then... gonna be an interesting next gen for sure
 
Yeah he sold a lot of wolf tickets in that series s video that was taken down but I don't see how everything would be on him that doesn't seem fair unless it was his vision and that seems doubtful.
 
Shame if they fired the team instead of just moving them to something else. As much crap as the S gets, the X is amazing. So powerful and yet so quiet and the room doesn't cook while you play it.
 
OverHeat said:
Bring Nvidia back you cowards
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Pound for pound you're going to deliver a lot better framerates and IQ with DLSS than any AMD-based setup. FSR3 is barely as good as DLSS 2 let alone DLAA and frame-gen capabilities of DLSS3.

If they want to swing hardware back in their favor and make Sony sweat going back to nVidia is their only choice.

but they won't
 
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Maybe surface team is working on the handheld and Jason's team is working on the next gen Xbox
 
Mixed feelings about this. I think the Series consoles are well designed, but I also have really liked some of the surface hardware. Mind you, not all of the surface hardware has been great, but they have knocked it out of the park on a few occasions.
 
Still maintain THIS is as the most balanced play for both consoles.

The XSS wasn't a bad idea but it was poorly executed (mem bandwidth/size difference & excessive gpu gulf) and the XSX was over-engineered (wide/slow GPU and odd memory interface with a large, expensive die); to what extent that is his doing or the pressure of higher-ups we'll probably never know.
 
Tal Shiar Agent said:
Every experience I've had with a Surface has been awful. They are shitty pieces of hardware that have nonstop issues.
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That's what I thought. Grim future for the Xbox and for sure executives are making big decisions here without considering long-term.
 
Series X, while pretty and compact, is the most overengineered boutique device that was never deisigned to be a massive success. Reminded me first revision of phat PS3. Daughterboard, vapour chamber, custom external SSD... It's too expensive to produce and too difficult to ramp-up when needed. The die size alone is a pain.

We can laugh at PS5's size all we want, but Sony made all the right concessions for a speedy and sustainable production, along with minimal architecture bottlenecks while undercutting both S and X in retail just by removing the BD drive.
Series S was just downright bad idea.

So yeah, good luck, if true. Nice beard tho.
 
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spons said:
I would buy a device like that in an instant if it has Xbox console games/digital library compatibility.
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I doubt it would have the same upgrades as the XSX did even while docked, but there are some titles that never got to PC…not many but maybe enough.
 
the surface team should've been axed ages ago. The surface is a terrible product line overall. Had nothing but bad experiences with them at my last job getting them setup for corporate use. 50% of the ones we unboxed (SP3/4) were DOA. Absolutely refused to use a surface since then.
 
The hardware is one part. Ms hasn't delivered on the games front. And most probably Ronald had a more balanced machine in the original design. But uncle Phil must have asked him to make it cheaper to try to have an edge on the price vs Ps5. If the games were there nobody would have care. Look at the switch.
 
Astray said:
Seems like he did lead design for both systems.

If so, he did not only fuck up on specs, he also kinda messed up not making them cost-savy enough, the X is very overbuilt and has a split board layout (which is expensive).
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Honestly this is one of the takes on Xbox that I understand the least. The team that did the Series S/X had extreme limitations on it made by Xbox management. Because of the 360 red ring of death, they could not push termals as much as they would want. Because of the Xbox One failure, they had to find a way to make sure that their console would be superior to the PS5, while being not too costly and with limited time and ressources, as they had to do the One X before it, and did not have the same clear vision, mandate and freedom and experience that Sony got. They had to make the platform that will become the Series S and X also work as a base for Xcloud. On top of all that, they had to do 2 consoles AND find a way to have it work with the next Direct X(direct storage and maybe RT) implementation while another team was writing the specifications of it at Microsoft. Joker: give it some abilities beyong AMD standard specs with VRR/HDMI 2.1 implementation(before the standard is set again) and whatever they mean by machine learning and Sampler Feedback Streaming. We can be happy that Sony got smart with the PS5, and specifically the digital edition, a real masterclass IMHO as it will be the base model in the future. But I really think that the Xbox team that designed the Series S/X got fucked over by Xbox management.
 
"Valve makes a handheld PC that runs Linux? Time for us to expand our platform wars to handheld PCs." God I hate Microsoft. The only reason they ever create something is to kill something. A monopolistic fucking nightmare.
 
OverHeat said:
Bring Nvidia back you cowards
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I believe the reason why both Microsoft and Sony chose to not go with Nvidia was (and is?) that they're notoriously hard to make a deal with. I am still amazed that Nintendo have successfully made a deal with Nvidia for the Switch that they deemed OK.
 
It's really bizarre. I wouldn't ever say HW has been much of a problem other than the launch 360. The One was overpriced, but they also insisted it be bundled with a stupid ass expensive camera no one wanted. The One X was great, the One S was a baller mid gen refresh, and the Series consoles are really fucking nice.
 
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